Israeli war criminals ?

The Goldstone Report, whose full title was the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, was published in September 2009. Its reception was a frenzy of debates. The idea of Israel committing war crimes stirred a whole industry of denial right across Israel. The most common response was that swe were seeing Israel “get away with it” once again. But the impact of the Report did not last. Now we have the Human Rights Council moving in the direction of another commission.

What perhaps has to be considered is not just the findings of any new report but the findings of the Goldstone report itself and indeed reports that go back to 1982, when an international commission investigated reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of Lebanon. Chaired by Sean McBride, the report went the same way as so many other reports since then; it was shelved and the general opinion again was that Israel “got away with it”. Now it is surely time for all these past reports to be considered alongside the newly commissioned report. They should all be assessed together.

What is also important is for a collection of all these reports to be published and be put before the international public. People should be allowed to make their own mind up about Israel. Let ordinary people determine who are the war criminals … People can then choose to join the boycott movement or not as they see fit.

In a discussion with a colleague recently the point was made that the public are getting sick of turning on their television sets and seeing the same story playing out. They get the feeling that Israel really are beyond the law. For instance today we heard that Israel had shelled a UN school where families were seeking refuge. The Israeli response was first that Palestinians could have been behind the shelling and then later they said they were having an inquiry to determine whether or not they had fired on the school. The first response seems to be standard. For anything that is nasty, the Palestinians are to blame. The second response says the Israelis are not sure of who they are firing on, which makes them war criminals.